Results tagged “Citizenship of the European Union” from IABlog

The Digital advertising industry exists in a complex
legislative and regulatory environment. Policies in Internet governance, privacy,
advertising, taxation, and intellectual property all have significant impacts
on the growth and direction of the industry.

A

nd these policies are not being developed in one place.
Within the Washington, DC beltway, laws and industry guidance are promulgated
by regulatory agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission or the Federal
Communications Commission, the judicial system and past precedent set by court
cases, and legislation enacted by Congress.

To make this policy landscape even more complex, the digital
advertising industry must also be cognizant of local and international laws. As
those working in the industry know, digital advertising is borderless in nature
and therefore depends upon a base level of legal cohesion among countries and regions.
Disruptions stemming from policies in one nation, or U.S. state, are felt
globally. Take, for example, two recent anecdotes from Europe.

On October 21, a data privacy bill before the European
Parliament passed through committee on its path to becoming law. This draft
bill, created in response to the recent revelations about U.S. national
security data-tracking practices, directly impacts the digital advertising
industry in several ways. For one, the bill calls for explicit consent before a
wider variety of processing activities. The bill would also create new barriers
to transferring information about EU citizens to the U.S. Perhaps most
importantly, the bill proposes a new definition of personally-identifiable
information that includes “online identifiers.” The European Parliament will
now negotiate with the Council of the EU to reach a compromise agreement.

Contemporaneously, the EU is considering whether or not to
allow the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Framework to continue. This framework allows
participating U.S. companies to comply with EU privacy rules through a
streamlined self-certification process. Under this framework, Over 4000
companies, and many IAB members, have demonstrated their high level of privacy
protection in order to work with European companies and serve European
citizens. Although Safe Harbor is focused on addressing commercial privacy
practices, the value of the Framework has been questioned in recent months in
association with national security concerns.

Were digital advertising practices and technologies static, there would already be a complicated set of rules to follow. But industry practitioners know that digital advertising is never static. Innovations are constantly created that raise new public policy questions. This is evidenced by the FTC’s recent interest in native advertising and the Internet of things.

To help the digital advertising industry identify the
policies relevant to them, the IAB has created an online Legislative
and Regulatory Tracker. This webpage summarizes draft legislation and
regulations that will impact our ecosystem, and categorizes these proposed laws
by subject, such as children’s privacy, location privacy, and trade. It also
offers IAB’s positions on the draft laws, providing further insight into how
IAB is working to promote growth in the interactive marketplace on behalf of
its members. Whether you’re a publisher, advertising network, or marketer, we
hope you find this service helpful in navigating the complex policy
environment.

This tracker will continually be updated and expanded, so
check back regularly for up-to-date information on the policies that could
affect your business. For more updates on the
IAB’s public policy work, visitthe
IAB public policy website. If you have
questions about the tracker or IAB’s other public policy initiatives, please
feel free to email me at [email protected].